DANNY AINGE COULD BE VERY BUSY THIS SUMMER BUILDING: ‘WE HAVE A LOT MORE THINGS TO TRADE, A LOT MORE THINGS TO MOVE’

WEEEI

By Mike Petraglia

Celtics President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge will be busy trying to retool his roster this summer for a title run. (Russ Isabella/USA Today Sports)

WALTHAM – The comparisons have already begun with the Celtics this offseason.

Many Celtics fans are hoping for the kind of reset that the franchise underwent in the summer of ’07, when Ainge was able to trade for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen and put together a team with just enough youth, veteran talent and depth that resulted in Banner 17 the following June.

With Brooklyn’s lottery pick on the horizon as one of three first-round picks and eight overall in the draft and the prospects of a Kevin Durant in free agency, the potential is there.

Does Ainge see any similarity with summer of ’07?

“I’m not sure we have a Paul Pierce on our roster,” Ainge said. “But I do think we have a lot more things to trade, a lot more things to move.”

This, of course, brings up the next point, is anyone on the current roster untouchable?

“Nobody’s ever untouchable. When Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gets traded, you know there’s no such thing as an untouchable in the NBA, or in any league for that matter,” Ainge added. “There’s certain guys that we want to keep and build around and move forward with.”

Ainge acknowledged there are certain players he’d like to keep, a not-so thinly veiled reference to Isaiah Thomas, Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder.

Ainge said he doesn’t have a good feel for the pending salary cap (estimated at $89 million next season and $109 the next) and how that might alter trade market.

“I don’t know that. I don’t know. This is new territory for all of us,” Ainge said. “We can all make our predictions but really, I’m not sure. Every team is in a unique situation and a different situation. We’ll be making lots of calls, trying to make trades. Listen, the transcendent players, the good players that you all need to win and to be successful in the NBA, they’re very hard to find and there’s not that many of them. And there’s 30 very qualified teams out there trying to find them all.”

Ainge said the pending explosion of the cap along with the Celtics’ position in the draft makes this year different when looking at free agency and the draft.

“They’re not independent. Some years they’re independent but I think that right now where we are, it’s all combined,” Ainge said. “We have to look at trades, draft and free agency in order to build our team. And with the assets that we have, with the draft, it’s probably one thing.”


If the Celtics land a top-3 pick, there’s the assumption they can add a transcendent player like Brandon Ingram or Ben Simmons.

“I don’t know yet. I don’t know yet. We see guys that have been drafted in the thirties and forties that are transcendent players,” Ainge said. “They’re out there, and the possibility. That’s what makes the draft so exciting is the hope and possibility of what could be but there’s certainly no guarantee. I mean the chances of a player picked in the player picked in the twenties is maybe 10 percent chance of that player being a rotation player. So, the odds of using draft picks and those becoming [transcendent] are very small. But they’re still possible.

“That’s eight swings, eight swings of the bat. I’ve got eight mulligans. Maybe we’ll draft all of them and hope one of them comes out, fight it out in training camp.”

Ainge said he’s not sure how many of the top picks will actually come to the team’s facility in Waltham for a workout.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “I’m not sure of that. So much depends on the ping pong balls and where we are. I’ve got a feeling of certain guys that’ll only visit two or three teams so I don’t know. I don’t know. By May 17, we’ll probably know a lot more.”

112288

I bet the waiting game that Ainge is being forced to play right now really gets under his skin even more than it does for us (the fans).

You can tell that he hates having to say that he "doesn't know", and that he would love to get started right away on making the Cs better for next season.

you never seem to hear of any trades prior to the draft selection order night, but I bet that he has been checking.

Wonder how many calls he has already made to various teams already?

Clyde

Ainge probably has not hung up the phone for weeks.

This team is really a good team but as we have seen we need upgrades.  There are so many ways to go.  He could trade the 1st pick along with players for a superstar but I really do not think he will go that route.

The key then is for him to convince a high quality free agent to come to Boston

Ainge has been trying to land a SF.  So if Ingram is there than that takes care of that but if Ingram is not there he could go after the SF from France Timothe Luwawu.  he could draft Hield and Luwawu and that would check off two boxes.   Durant will  determine if he wants to test the waters or stay put for another year.  If he stays put or goes elsewhere we could entice Harrison Barnes.  GS may not be able to keep him but we could offer enough money to make him leave.  We can also have a tug of war with Pat Riley over Whiteside or hold our noise and consider Dwight Howard who is still putting up very good numbers.

And for all the we want Cousins fans, we could see a blockbuster deal to get him.

Danny has enough draft picks so that he should be able to move up or down to target specific players that he wants.

The Celtics have never been in a situation like this.  This is new territory.  And if the basketball gods shine down on us we could hit the jackpot and get the 1st pick.

dboss